Omaha daily bee., 1887-05-09
"NATIONAL NICKNAMES."
Some That Distinguished the Leading Men
Of the United States.
PROMINENT POLITICAL PARTIES
"Old kory'-"Tippccanoe and Ty-
Ter TOo"-"van, Van, the Com.
ing Man'-New York Nick
name Nest.

| New York Sun: For q young republic
we were most dignitied people in our po.
litical habits for the first thirty years of
our life as nation. Perhaps it was
keen sense of the audacity of our unique
experiment in "of, by and for govern.
ment" that caused all political operations
to be characterized by gravity and great
| dignity. Presidential canvasses were car
ricd on as lawyers argue grave causes
| before supreme courts. Schoolboys
| and soldiers were permitted to
hurrah, but not politicians. Torchights,
bonfires, fun, and fury would have been
thought contemplate auxillaries of an
| election for president, and to display emo
ton was beneath the dignity of men who
were sovereigns. Public men spoke in.
| formal rhetoric and in Latinized
phrases. Even Daniel Webster was
magnlloquent and in those early
days of his political life. Argu.
ments were worthless that were not
classics, and rhetoric puerle that did
not permit the spoutng of lines from
Cicero, Dempnsthenes. and the poets.
The pamphlet was an engine of political
persuasion. Publius and Agricola Senex
and Justitia labored by means of open
letters of prodigious length to prevail
against the monarchical federalsts or
| the republican-democrats The press
was great IN its political essays, and very
little IN its news. 1t reported the duel
between Burr and Hamilton in ten lines,
and ratiocinated by the column on
abstruse political theories. The great
conventions that in these days nominate
| for tho presidency were then unknown.
Grave caucuses of verv grave
members OF congress placed the can.
| didates in nomination. Sometimes even
this formality was dispensed with, and
| the electoral college voted for the candi-
| called the consensus of opinion. Federal
lists as party gasped and died soon after
the war OF 1919. Calm respectability and
conventional decOrum prevailed. Pla-
cidity followed, and Mr.. Monroe was
elected for his second term without the
ripple. OF a political wave or the an
tagonism of an idea. TO that point we
had come, and the danger that threatened
was that of dry rot. Then of sudden
our whole system of political activity
was changed. We plunged into the can
vass of 1924 with watchword, an in
spring cry, that stimulated men and
made them enthusiastic. 1t vitalized
politics. 1t began the splendid series of
popular and healthy turbulences which
have eyer since characterized presidential
canvaSses, and yet this inspiring cry was
simply nickname-Old Hickory.
"oLD HICKORY" JACKSON.
'Nicknames," said Napoleon, SHOULD
not be despised;' and it is said that
Jackson reioiced in his sobriquet of Old
Hickory. How he earned it is in dispute,
but once earned it stuck to HIM until his
death. and is one of the few nicknames
of the past that have not been forgotten.
1t was the first to be carried into pres
identlal canvass, and 1t was potent be-
cause it represented an idea. Andrew
Jackson represented force, courage, vi
tality, popular government without the
frllls and the ceremonials of the foreign
courts, energy. and genuine democracy
strengthened by experience. This set the
sluggish political blood of that, day to
dancing, and this canvass, in which men
became enthusiastic and excited, taught
the politicians of that time that there
was health and vigor in this stirring up
of men, by appealing as we'll to- their
son. Stagnatlon had threatened us.
But the wild whirl of an exciting pres
idential canvass clarified and invigorated
politics. And it is precisely this most
healthy and needful element of our po-
litical life that the so-called civil service
reform OF to-day antagonizes. If
we'll as the civil service there might be no
need of the activity, enthusiasm. energy
and other forces that come from a stimu-
lation OF the emotions. But while
human nature remains what it is, we
should get our political oxygen through
these agencies. and that is benefit that
| xrytl Ia fnr hot thov> o,y;l kha,
be any, in our civil service system of
placing in the administrative Office men
in sympathy with the party in power.
From the time when, under the inspira-
tion OF Jackson's name, men freed our
political canvasses from the appalling
dignity and solemnity that first charac-
terized them, the tendency has been to
and we find this exemplified in the
striking and significant nicknames or So
briquets that were attached to the great
party leaders. Men catch at nick.
name. 1t brings a candidate nearer to
J them. 1t Is one of the equalizng re.
sources OF democracy, And SO we find
that after the charm of Old Hickory has
shown its power, there was developed
speedily not only strong, hearty and
vigorous opposition to the party Jack.
son resuscitated, but tendency to
idealize its great leader by a sobriquet,
and in 1881 the rapidly crystallizing
whig party began to talk of Harry Of
, | the west"
POWER IN POLITICS..
\ The younger generation cannot appre
8 ciate the tremendous power there was in
: that sobriquet. 1t idealized Clay. Il
, | typiiied his magnetic qunlties. 1t made
$ political equal of a great intellect. II
; matched for the wings the enthusiasm
created by the mention of Old Hickory
!. among the democrats.
|, Old Hlckory's heir apparent was Mar
|. tin Van Buren,, and he went into thu
:. White House, after a splendid canvass
1 in which the nickname of 1.-THE LittI
4 Magician" played potent part. William
u Henry Harrison was then beaten by th
: Little Magician, but four years late
there was canvass for tho presidenc,
I that can only be described as magniti
d cent. Every citizen was made to fee
o his sovereignty IN it. 1t was cyclon
: of political activity. Harrison was nick
$ named, and in every cress-road corne
9 , men shouted for Tippecanoe and lyle
!" too: Old Tip, Hard Cider, Log Cabin